DMN Newswire--2013-1-31--If you are like most people, you made a New Years resolution at the end of 2012. Was one of these resolutions to stop wasting your hard earned money on useless things and to actually start to save for a rainy day or retirement, then donīt wait any further.A few minutes of your time doing a search on the internet can yields a few extra dollars or even thousands of new found money.

This is not some get rich scheme where you have to invest a lot of time and money just to get no results. The secret, well its not really a secret, but a well know fact, there are billions of dollars in missing and unclaimed money sitting in U.S. Government offices, failed banks, misplaced pensions, lost 401ks and Insurance companies to name a few.

CNN Money recently reported that ?states, federal agencies and other organizations collectively hold more that $58 billion in unclaimed cash and benefits?. This unclaimed money comes in many forms from: Travelers checks, money orders, stocks and dividends, saving and checking accounts, amount owed by an insurer on a life or endowment insurance policy, court proceeds from class action law suits, wages and other compensation, refunds and deposits from utility companies, property held by agents and fiduciaries and property in individual retirement accounts.

The above list is by no means all inclusive. Each state has their own definition of what is classified as unclaimed and what period of time is required before the property goes to them, so you need to check for unclaimed money periodical, according to foundmoney.com.

CNN Money goes on to quote institutions, such as Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which say that there are over $300 million in pension benefits waiting to be claimed by about 38,000 pensioners, while the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators is quoted as saying that about $47.7 billion of forgotten money is being held by the various unclaimed state offices across the country.

One very important source of unclaimed money, that was never reported until state government compelled them to do so recently, are life insurance policies of surviving beneficiaries.

Michael Gormley, from the Associated Press recently reported, that Andrew Cuomo, State Governor of New York stated that ?89,000 people nationwide are getting shares of over $665 million in life insurance benefits that many didn't know they were entitled to receive?. Andrew Cuomo, goes on to say, ?It is only fair for families and individuals who lost loved ones to receive the life insurance benefits to which they are entitled and that Life insurers are now responsible for proactively identifying policyholder deaths and are making good faith efforts to find people so hundreds of millions of dollars in unclaimed benefits can be paid?.

Florida is another state, that such a policy for unclaimed life insurances policies, and according to its chief financial officer, they received 61,271 new unclaimed property proceeds amounting to over $25 million from AIG insurance as part of their settlement. There are another 20 states that have also followed suite.

Millions of Americans have unclaimed property that belongs to them, although it may not be you, taking a few minutes to do some searches may result in a nice windfall or at the very least piece of mind knowing that you did your best to find out. It is best however to search for unclaimed property regularly to make sure that there is nothing that turns up in your name in the future.